Archers thread #177: Will Bridge Farm get a PassiveAggressivHaus? Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd love to have a moribund camper van parked indefinitely outside your home, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Over to you!

I heard 6 year olds then teenagers too. Came on here to check.

I wondered that but I would expect internet access to be heavily monitored in a prison

Deleted as I wrote a message about it being a scam set up by George but saw another poster had suggested the same thing.

Probably George has been lulled into a sense of security by one of his “friends” and has given them the local info to make the ads look genuine

Coincidentally, I'm teaching a woman this year who moved from the UK to the south-west US (neighbouring state to Arizona) at age 10 and moved back a couple of months ago. She has a transatlantic mish-mash accent, getting less American now she's living with British family, but her vocabulary is very American: she says 'Yes, Ma'am' when answering questions, for example. Faith and Chuck don't sound at all Arizonan to me, I thought they were attempting New York.

Poor Jakob, the yurt was bad enough, but a futon. The horror. And to use words I never use, Ruth was right.

Kate should at the very least have demanded Faith's family name and passed it on to her grandmother and her great aunts Jill and Christine, any or all of whom might remember her parents, if not a specific 10 year old.

Well they don’t sound like they are in their 70s!

Another treat in store, then. <braces self>

Emma Fielding is 58. Nathan Osgood's agent's page says his playing age is 30s to 50s.

Mid to late 60s would put her into 'at school with Shula, Kenton, and Eddie' territory. Villages being villages, Kenton would probably have played with a child who lived on the Green, even if she was a few years older than him.

They sounded in their 50s to me so not far off!!

A 40th wedding anniversary puts them into their sixties at least.

They’re not great at casting then

bet those two teenagers were mighty relieved to be going home…

I hate Chuck and whatever her name is. What a pair of chancers.

Oh and boop Ruth for sending her one packing.

The editor is coming up to retirement (O God we will get ANOTHER new broom thinking they are clever, no doubt), and the writers don't seem to be all that young either. The Christmas Carol gubbins was written by Nick Warburton, who was born in 1947; Keri Davies was a banker, an officer in the RAF and a PR man in London before he started working for the BBC, and he's been with TA at least since 1991; Katie Hims has been working for the BBC since 1996; Tim Stimpson was 23 when he started to write for TA in 2003; Daniel Thurman seems much the same age as Stimpson, with his first play in 2003; Liz John has been writing for radio since 2000. I think none is of the generation the BBC seems to think it ought to woo.

Actually the writer of this week's trottle, Sarah McDonald Hughes, doesn't seem to have written anything much before 2007 so she might be under forty-five. And Sarah Hehir may be, ditto. Naylah Ahmed has probably only been working on TA since 2010....

When I said older I meant older than twenties really

the teens feel like they are written by older people who know some teens and have written them from the sw perspective

Yes, that does seem like it.

I think Keri Davies has driven a lot of the snobbery. Maybe it will improve when he goes.

Gosh, what a coincidence. Two families caught up in a booking scam in November. I often look back on the days spent on holiday in the countryside in November - Happy Days.

I was wondering if it was George too.

I hope they're all enjoying the weather.

So sw meeting on scam week

what common scam shall we do?
Romance scam with Helen?
fake bank caller with Jill?
cheese theft from bridge farm?
fake goods to Kenton?

nope, it’s end of November - clearly a holiday scam because they’ll be so many people impacted. And I know - an American couple - they won’t want to spend thanksgiving at home with their family! Ooh! And let’s call him Chuck

He's called Chuck because it's a throwawy SL.

I know, Kate’s response to hearing that whatsername grew up in Ambridge was heavily wrong!
no “But you’ll remember my Gran then, she was landlady st The Bull and had three children who’d be around your age (pause to wipe away a tear at JD’s memory)!”

And why are the people from all over the place using a specialist website for Borsetshire (apart from the BBC not wanting to mention real brand names)? Even if it came up high on search results (it really wouldn't!), you wouldn't trust a random website you'd never heard of - you'd go through something like booking.com or Airbnb.

I've just chucked - sorry, checked - with New York born-and-raised MrG, who says yes, he has known people called "Chuck", but not since primary school in 1940s Brooklyn. It now seems to be mostly restricted to US politicians who want to appear to be Men of the People.

There have been plenty of scams reported on booking.com and airbnb. A small independent site is probably a better bet.